A "power stunt" is basically an Alternate Effect that you didn't have before. Often, especially with Paragons and Powerhouses, you're "stunting" off of the damage portion of your strength (you could theoretically use all of it, but most GMs are a bit leery of that, as there are few cases where you need to use both lifting and damage at the same time). The stunted Alternate Effect remains in place until the end of the encounter (so Captain Marvel could use the hand clap in more than one round during the encounter, even if he switches to use the base power that he AEed off of).

The only thing keeping Robin from doing it is the same as with any AE, GM approval. Plus, the classic "super-clap" attack relies on AEing off of the strength bonus. Robin might do something similar with his equipment, say taking his 20 ep Utility belt and happening to have a flash-bang with which he deafens the enemies around him. Safe effect (I think) but different descriptor.

Bane has an effective Strength of 7, part of which is enhanced. He spent 14 pp on his Strength, 7 pp of which is damage. He decides to use a dirty trick and clap Batman's ears on either side to stun him. This is not normally one of his powers, so he uses Extra Effort, either Fatiguing himself or giving Batman, the PC, a Hero Point, and does a stunt with those 7 pp. Affliction is a good match for what he wants to do, so he builds it as follows:Ear Clap (Affliction 7) (Dazed/Stunned/incapacitated)

He rolls a close attack and hits Batman for a DC 17 Fortitude save. Batman's player rolls a 2 (2+8 = 10 total) and is therefore Stunned as his head explodes in pain.

Later in the Battle, Batman wants to take away part of Bane's physical advantage, so he pulls a hypodermic syringe full of muscle relaxant from his bat utility-belt. That item isn't in his normal range of items, so he incurs Fatigue reaching for it while dodging Bane's attacks. He can spend a Hero Point to erase the Fatigue. I'm going to assume 12 EP of effects in the Utility belt based on what's listed, which is effectively a 12 PP effect. Batman turns it into the following:Hypodermic Syringe (Weaken 6) (Strength; Extra: Secondary Effect).

He hits and Bane faces a DC 16 Fortitude save that turn versus the drug to avoid losing Strength, and a second Fortitude save the next turn due to Secondary Effect.

Some of the confusion may also stem from the prior 2E usage of "Super-Strength" and "Super-Speed" stunts. Within 2E, Super-Strength was kind of confusing in that its power stunts were Alternate Effects of the regular Strength bonus instead of the Super-Strength power itself. Almost all of the stunts were built as 2 pp/rank stunts, so you simply had X ranks for whatever X your Strength bonus was. Super-Speed, on the other hand, came with a built-in array of "stunts" you could do that were built as a single effect (effectively an array) and then AEs off of that for 1 PP each. Complicating things, some of these "stunts" were actually separate powers bundled in, things like Super-Movement with a Limited (only while moving) to model the average speedster being able to run across water or up walls so long as they don't stop or slow down in mid-run).

In regards to super-speed stunts, if you actually have Super-Speed ranks, there's at least 2 pp per rank to work with when pulling a power stunt (Enhanced Initiative isn't really an option because it only applies at the beginning of combat) so long as you're not trying to use the Speed or Quickness aspects at the same time.

andhaira wrote:Ok, I still don't get it. Can you walk me through it, on how to use it and all the modifiers?

To understand power stunts you need to understand alternate effects. You should read the information in the book about the alternate effect advantage. Now, as for power stunts:

When you buy a power it costs points. Light blast: ranged damage 12, 24 pts.

Light Man can run around and blast people with his light blast. One day Light Man decides he doesn't want to blast his target, he wants to blind him. Since Light Man doesn't have a blinding power he decides to power stun a light blind attack from his light blast.

Light Man power stunts his light blast into light blind. This requires extra effort. If Light Man has a hero point he can use it to remove the fatigue the extra effort cost him. On his turn Light Man shoots blinding light into his target's eyes rather then shooting a blast into his chest.

That's the basics of power stunting. Using a power you have paid for to temporarily get a new power of equal or lesser point cost.

However, I do get the feeling the Narrator has to impose some restrictions, as I can see potential for a lot of abuse here. Primarily, certain characters should not be able to do something they would thematically not be able to do (such as Wonder Woman firing lasers from her eyes)

Another question: When Power Stunting and building temporary alternate effects, does the alternate effect have to match the parent power? For instance, Wonder Woman has high strength, but she doesn't really have super speed. So, she could not move her arms fast enough to create mini whirlwinds to put out a fire, like say Superman could do, right? Because Superman has super speed, and he can stunt off of that.

Power stunts generally should be linked to some base descriptor. Spiderman's webshooters make snares. He can power stunt it to make a web parachute, or make a web attack that blinds his targets, or make a web bat, and so on. Almost everything Spiderman might power stunt his webshooters needs to make some sense of it being made out of webbing. Spiderman's webshooters can't power stunt a fire blast.

Sometimes the descriptor is very broad, though. Black Adam's base descriptor is magic. Magic can often do a lot of things in the comics so the gm really needs to decide how limited he wants to make the character. In general, though, you want the power stunt to make some sense to the power being stunted from.